Allow me to postpone my Rio review until the dust has settled and emotions are not (or less) in play. But maybe just two quick observations already before I will shortly discuss the new (FIH) ranking after the Games.
First: please let’s forget the experiment of the blue pitch for future tournaments. It has no advantages at all over the traditional green surface, quite the contrary.
Second: please, oh please can we get some knowledgeable press covering our game of hockey? I’ve read and heard Belgian, Dutch, German, English & Indian commentators (written & TV) to our game. Most of them have in common they do not understand the game of hockey or do not care at all about being credible, just looking for the easy quote to get noticed. But I’ll probably get into that in another column later on…

It’s not honest!

For this column I would like to talk, once again I know, about the ranking used by the FIH and a more correct one (but also probably open to improvements). I have just the one problem with the ranking used by the FIH, the official global ranking that is. It’s not honest! Just read one of my previous columns on the subject (Change or kill the world ranking) to find out why. I’m not going to explain that here again.

However following the Rio Games the FIH has published it’s new and updated ranking according to the same old system again. In their ranking Australia keep the first position mainly because of points given to them for their Oceanic title and the recent Champions Trophies. Both of them events that should not be counted towards a more honest ranking. Argentina jump to 2nd place because of their golf medal in Rio. England drops somewhat in the ranking and Spain and Ireland enter the top 10. Click here to see the ranking as fabricated by the FIH…

The honest ranking!

The correct and honest ranking would not take into account continental championships (because different continents can not be compared fair and honest) nor the Champions Trophies (because not all countries are allowed in, it’s an invitational tournament). Also the Olympics are the highest ranked tournament in our sport so they should be worth slightly more than even the World Cup according to me. But maybe that would be debatable.
In the honest world ranking Argentina would take over the number 1 spot (moving up from 5th instead of 7th) from Australia and Belgium (moving up from 3rd instead of 6th) would be ahead of the traditional top 3 as well. Check it out…

But there it is. Quite an upset to the world ranking following the Rio Games where the traditional top 3 have to take a backseat to both Rio finalists. Will Argentina & Belgium confirm their new ranking? We will have to wait and see for the next World League finals in december of next year…